Month: June 2018

No sixth-former had ever been caned at my school, so I made history that day.

Actually, hardly anyone had been caned in living memory – it was a “progressive” school and I had thought corporal punishment had been abolished a long time ago.

But, as I was to find out it had only fallen into disuse and that day it was making a comeback.

And, I welcomed its return, thank you very much, Sir.

I was eighteen years old and for a long as I could remember I had had a thing about corporal punishment. I used to fantasize about what it would be like to go over someone’s knee for the slipper or be sent to the headmaster’s study for six-of-the-best with the cane.

And, now my fantasy was to come true: or so I hoped.

It was all rather unexpected. I was in no way a bad lad, a rebellious teen, or a troublemaker. In fact I was such a goody-goody I was a prefect at the school and tipped to go on to university.

I had fallen foul of one of the school’s most fearsome battle-axes: Miss Lowenstein. She really was an old crone. One of the ugliest women you’d ever be likely to meet, with buck teeth and a gammy leg, courtesy of a childhood bout of polio.

She was, of course, a spinster and we boys all thought she was sex starved (as if we weren’t). And, she was a tough disciplinarian. She called herself a “martinet” and woe betides anyone who did not call her “ma’am”. No way were we allowed to call her “miss”, like we did all the other women teachers.

She had a mean streak and that’s how it was that I was about to break the record and take a caning.

We had a school magazine, it wasn’t a posh one, professionally published, but just something we cobbled together on an old Roneo printer. It was mostly short stories and poems (well doggerel verse really). It was my prowess as a poet that got me in trouble. I’d penned a verse that did not name her, but everyone knew who I meant. Somewhere in there it called her a “crow” and that she did not like.

So, before I knew it she was onto Mr Henderson, the head of Upper School, whining on that something must be done. And, the only “something” that would satisfy the bat was me bent over getting a sore arse.

When I realised I was for it I was not the least worried. I had dreamt about this for so long. I was fascinated by school canings and read lots of stories and comics that involved schoolboys getting their backsides tanned.

My favourite stories took place in public schools which were a world away from the inner city comprehensive I attended. In England “public” schools are expensive private schools, often where pupils boarded. What they all had in common was the thwack of the cane across the seat of the trousers that rewarded boys who misbehaved.

At home I used to pretend I was one of the boys sent for “six on the bags” as the school stories had it. Often I would dress up in my school uniform and pose in front of the full-length mirror in the passageway of our council flat. I would bend over touching my toes admiring the reflection of my bum in the mirror.

I never did anything about my spanking fantasy. I was young and we were all very naïve in those days. We didn’t have Internet then, so I wasn’t to know that there were plenty of people out there who shared my interest. Let’s face it there would have been plenty of people ready to cane an eighteen-year-old schoolboy’s backside raw (and much else besides) if they knew he was ready and willing.

I had one friend who looking back I think might have shared my interest. We were too young to express to each other our true feelings and the closest we got to doing anything was one day, while playing in his house, we found some sticks and had a go at sword-fighting. I can’t remember how it happened, but we moved on from medieval knights or whatever to naughty boys.

To this day, I remember he was willing to get a whacking from me. He bent over the back of the couch. We were both children so he couldn’t quite stretch all the way over. But, I do remember his chubby buttocks stretching against his corduroy trousers. He made a perfect target and if I hadn’t been so shy, I would have (no, should have) swished the stick into his arse.

But I chickened out. Why? I don’t know. But even now nearly fifty years after the event I still have pangs of regret.

So, I wasn’t about to give up the chance of a proper headmaster’s caning from Mr Henderson.

I went to a pretty ordinary school and we had no airs and graces: my school uniform was a very standard black blazer with grey trousers.

My uniform was ordinary and if truth be told I was pretty ordinary too: about five-foot-seven, a little over eight-stone in weight, and properly proportioned, not like the obese teenagers you see today.

At the appointed time I went to the concrete and glass Admin Block and knocked on the door of Mr Henderson’s office. My heart was thumping as if I had run a mile in a minute to be there. Something exciting was happening here and I couldn’t easily describe it, but I hoped that after this afternoon I wouldn’t quite be the same again.

I entered on Mr Henderson’s command. I was surprised to find Miss Lowenstein waiting there: not only was she determined to make sure I got my beating; she was going to personally witness it.

Mr Henderson had a modern office and it was very small. With all the filing cabinets you couldn’t swing a cat (or hardly a cane) in it. He probably looked like a typical comprehensive schoolteacher: wearing a rather scruffy shirt and plain tie with beige trousers that had seen better days since he bought them at a cheap chain store many years ago.

There wasn’t much room with all three of us present. I stood as best I could in front of Mr H’s Formica-covered desk. It was a mess, piled high with files and school notebooks. Miss Lowenstein moved out of my eyesight, probably all the better to get a view of what was to happen next.

Mr Henderson didn’t quite know what to say. He called me “Walton,” which isn’t quite my name. He mumbled something about how awful I had been. He actually said my behaviour was “ugly” and I suppressed a laugh at that, knowing that word perfectly described Miss Lowenstein.

I said something nondescript in return and then he told me matter-of-factly that he was going to cane me.

He moved to a filing cabinet. I hadn’t noticed before, but on top of it lay a short stick. This was no crook-handled ashplant cane beloved of public school masters; this was a piece of bamboo, a little over two feet long and so rigid it would be impossible to bend it, or get much of a swish out of it.

Then he said the wonderful words I had dreamt of hearing for so long, “Bend over, Walton.”

There wasn’t anything to bend over, a desk or a chair, so heart thumping madly I just bent down. He hadn’t given the time-honoured command “touch your toes,” so I leaned forward a bit and keeping my legs straight I put my hands on my knees. That was enough. I was stooped there showing sufficient backside to serve the purpose.

I waited staring down at the worn carpet for the first stroke to land, remembering all those times I had bent touching my toes in front of the mirror. It didn’t matter how much it hurt I would shut my teeth and stick it, just like the boys in the stories I loved so much.

There was no swish as the cane landed on my bum, just a dull thud. I felt it, but there was no searing pain. The second and third stoke landed. What a disappointment. I hardly felt a thing. Mr Henderson’s heart was not in this. I felt terribly let down.

I got six strokes, but there’s no way anyone could have mistaken them for “six-of-the best.” I remained bent over after the last one landed. I knew the etiquette was you stayed in position until you were given permission to stand up. In the stories if a boy stood up before being allowed he got extra strokes. I wouldn’t have minded some more, but I doubt Mr Henderson would have obliged.

Eventually, rather absent-mindedly Mr Henderson said I should get up. I did as I was told. Did my face show my disappointment? I can’t be sure, but I could see Miss Lowenstein had a face like thunder. She was not impressed. Had she wanted to see me jumping about from foot to foot clutching my bum in agony and choking in fits of sobs?

Maybe she did. I’m sure that’s what I wanted too.

Mr Henderson was still holding the cane, not sure what to do with it, or how to dismiss me from his office. I don’t suppose he had much experience caning schoolboys since corporal punishment had all but been abolished at the school.

Eventually he summoned up enough wit to send me on my way.

I was in no real pain. In the stories I would have been rubbing my backside furiously as I rushed back to my study. I did have a surreptitious feel of the seat of my trousers, just a quick rub with my thumb, but there was no sensation there.

I knew I couldn’t go to the lavs to inspect the damage (if there was any) because they would be full of smokers and there’d be no privacy.

Instead, I went straight home. Thirty minutes later I was lying on my bed, my trousers and pants on the floor beside me. I was sorely disappointed. I couldn’t find a trace of the cane’s marks. It was as if it hadn’t happened. There were no welts or bruises that would last for days and no chance that I would have difficulty in sitting down at tea time or have to sleep on my stomach tonight.

I leaned over and took an ancient storybook and a handful of tissues from the bedside table. They certainly knew how to deal with misbehaving seniors at St Tom’s School.

Dr Tulke rose from his writing-table. To Wooton’s surprise, he picked up a cane. Wooton could not see what the cane was wanted for.
He was, however, soon to discover.
“Senior boys,” said the Head, “are not usually caned at St, Tom’s, but there are exceptional cases that can be dealt with in no other way. Bend over that desk, Wooton!”
“Eh?”
“Bend over that desk!”
Wooton – bewildered and dismayed – bent over the desk.
Swipe! Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe!

It was not merely “six.” It was as thorough a licking as Dr Tulkehad ever administered; such a licking as Wooton had seldom or never experienced before.
It seemed like a horrid dream to Wooton of the Sixth. But it was no dream; it was painful reality. Very painful! The head was a venerable gentleman, but he seemed to have a lot of beef in his right arm. He put it all into that whacking.
Wooton fairly squirmed.
“Now,” said the head, breathing hard, “you may go, Wooton! Not another word, or I shall cane you again! Go!”

Wooton almost tottered from the study. He left with pale face and compressed lips. His eyes were burning like hot coals.

Like this:

Albert stood at the twelfth-storey window watching the city below him, sucking on a heavy glass tumbler and half listening to the news wafting from the radio in his lounge room. It’s all doom and gloom, he mused to himself. Why doesn’t anything happy ever happen? The doorbell rang; absent-mindedly he turned the radio down and glanced at the clock on the wall. Twenty past six.

He opened the door and stood puzzled. An agitated young man, not much more than a boy really, shuffled from one foot to the other. He was dressed in a schoolboy’s blazer and short trousers, a little too tight. Silence hung in the air.

“Can I come in?” Albert moved away from the door and the boy entered. Only then did Albert notice he was carrying a long, thin canvas bag. A cricket bag, he guessed. The boy put it on the carpet and straddling across it he bent down and unzipped it. Albert’s heart jumped. He had a terrific view of the boy’s perfectly round buttocks. The legs were thin and hairless.

“I’ve got all sorts of toys, Mr Cartwright,” the boy opened the bag further. Albert saw a pair of jeans and a yellow t-shirt on top. “I’ve got canes, a taws, paddle, slipper, an old-fashioned razor strop,” the boy spoke at breakneck pace. Clearly, he had learned a script. His words were enunciated clearly, but they came out in a rush.

“We can play it however you want. You can be the schoolmaster and I’ll be the pupil. Or you can be my dad or my uncle and I’ve come home from school with a note saying I’ve been a naughty little boy,” he paused for breath, “Or if you have a special scenario we can discuss that. I’ve a note saying you’ve paid upfront.”

Albert stood casually watching the boy’s performance. Nobody speaks that quickly, he thought. He must be tweaked. Not exactly high perhaps, but on his way.

The boy stopped and stared at Albert. He flashed a practiced smile. “Mr Cartwright?”

Albert started, only just realising he was expected to say something. He peered at the boy, aware that his own dick was swelling with blood. This boy was gorgeous. So clear skinned. So thin. How often did you see a boy who wasn’t rolling in fat and covered in tattoos? And so young? “How old are you son?”

The boy found the practiced smile once more. This wasn’t the first time he had been asked that question. “I’m nineteen,” the words sped out, “I look a bit younger because I’m not very tall. It runs in the family. You should see my granddad, he’s four-foot-ten. In this clobber,” he indicated he was wearing a school uniform, “I get half fares on the trams,” he giggled at his own joke and lapsed into silence.

The silence became embarrassing. The boy broke it “Where do you want us to go?” he nodded at a door that he assumed led to a living room of some sort.

“Oh yes, right,” Albert was regaining his wits, “come this way.” The lounge room was large enough to accommodate a couch, two armchairs a dining table, bookcases and a television and entertainment unit. The boy appraised the room with a single glance, the gleam in his eye suggested approval. There was money here.

The boy glanced at the clock; time was getting on, he had arrived late. “Have you chosen from the menu?” his hands shook slightly so he hid them behind his back.

Albert shook his head, not to indicate a negative reply but to regain his reason. He cleared his throat with a hacking cough. He was sure his neck and face had coloured up. “Can we do this naked?” he blurted, then hurriedly corrected himself. “That is you naked, not me. Not both of us.” He silently rebuked himself for his fear. His cock was raging, it wanted to get on with this.

The boy painted the smile across his chops. “Say more?” he nodded to show possible approval. Sweat was starting to soak through Albert’s back. “You naked, across my knee, me spanking you with a belt.” He threw his arms wide to show his own belt holding up his heavy twill trousers.

The boy shrugged his shoulders, “Sure why not?” Albert nearly choked. The boy looked around the room, “On the settee?” Albert, his head spinning wildly, could hardly nod his assent. His heart raced, his temples throbbed, adrenaline flooded through his body. He was a fit man in his forties but he feared any second now he might have a stroke. He leaned against the dining table for support.

The boy undressed un-self-consciously as if preparing for bed. He slipped the blazer from his shoulders and lay it carefully on an armchair. He tugged a striped tie from his neck, then unbuttoned his shirt. Albert’s eyes stalked as the boy’s hairless torso was revealed. Nobody could be that hairless. Albert had heard of beauty parlours in town that could pluck every hair from the body. Every one. Even on the you-know-where. Muscles on the boy’s back tensed as he removed the shirt. Albert stared intensely at the boy’s flat stomach as he popped the waistband of his grey short trouser. His top teeth bit into his bottom lip at the first glimpse of gleaming white cotton underpants. Like the trousers themselves they were a size or two too small. They snugged the boy’s penis; even at a distance Albert saw he was uncut. The boy stepped out of his trousers, put his thumbs in the waistband of the underpants and eased them down his thighs and past the knees. He let them drop the rest of the way to his feet. He kicked them away. He started on his socks.

“No, no,” Albert was bursting to go. “That’s all right,” he almost screeched as he fumbled with the buckle of his own belt. At last it was free. His hands trembled as the belt flew through the loops on his trousers. “Come here! Come here!” he staggered backwards and fell with a thump on the couch. “Come. Over my knee.”

The boy paused, expecting some little drama to be played out. Some naughtiness at school; a neighbour complaining about a football being kicked against the house, scrumping apples.

“Now!” Albert’s blood pressure was soaring. Any moment his heart might explode. The boy appraised the situation, approached Albert and without a word he eased himself forward. The couch was small so he settled himself across Albert’s left knee and stretched across it. A scatter cushion blocked his way so he took hold and buried his face in it. He felt Albert grip him around the waist. He dangled across Albert’s knee. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, and he knew it wouldn’t give Albert the best view of his arse, nor the best target for him to lash. He was about to suggest he reposition himself when the first swipe landed on his right cheek. Albert’s wheezing almost drowned out the sound of leather belt rising, falling and connecting with naked flesh. It was a frenzied attack; rat-a-tat-tat. Like machinegun fire. Nobody was counting, but there he must have been going at a rate of forty lashes a minute.

The boy bit deep on the cushion as his bottom warmed up. Albert whacked on and on, astounded at how quickly the boy’s creamy white bottom turned crimson. The outline of his belt was reproduced time and again across naked flesh, from the top of the cheeks, across the mounds themselves and into the tender sit-spot. The boy’s legs buckled. It was a natural reflex action, for in truth he was feeling very little pain; a little blue pill swallowed earlier had seen to that. Albert was no expert at administering corporal punishment, but the boy was a seasoned receiver. He grimaced and groaned, raised his head from the cushion and pleaded for forgiveness: all part of the service.

Albert lost sense of time and place: he might have gone on all night. But suddenly he heard a familiar tune coming from the radio. TheArchers was about to start. Seven o’clock. Where had the time gone? He shook his head clear; his chest ached and so did his cock, any moment now one or other would explode. He released his grip on the boy who took his chance and rolled off Albert’s lap and lay on the floor.

The boy caught his breath, glanced at the time, as anyone who works by the clock does. He saw Albert’s scarlet face and dark hooded eyes. The bulge in his trousers was unmissable. The boy painted a smile. “Do you want a blow-job?” Albert’s eyes gave silent assent. The boy rose on his knees in front of his master and expertly opened the front of his trousers. The boy’s tongue poked out his mouth. It was broad and flat. Keeping eye contact with Albert he licked the entire length of the older man’s steel-hard cock. Then he took the tip inside his mouth; sucking, swirling, flicking.

He wrapped one hand around the base of the shaft, moving it up and down in time with the movements of his tongue. His fingers delicately caressed Albert’s testicles. “Huff, huff, huff.” Albert gasped without control. His hips gyrated, his thighs swayed. The boy moved his mouth just in time to receive a load full in the face. The boy rolled away across the carpet and watched Albert’s gasping, retching body doubled up on the couch.

“Can I use your kitchen?” Without waiting for a reply the boy left the room. Seconds later he was wiping his face clean with damp paper towels. He twisted his body to inspect his backside. Yellow bruises were already coming through. He had taken worse, he knew. No real harm done. He returned to the living room, packed away his school uniform in the cricket bag and dressed in jeans and t-shirt. Albert did not move from the couch. His natural pasty white colouring was returning.

“Thank you, Mr Cartwright,” the boy hovered at the door, ready to leave. But not quite ready. He glared at the old, wheezing man on the couch. “I’ll be going now then, Mr Cartwright; back to Mr Hennessey’s.”

Albert nodded a farewell. The boy now exasperated snapped. “You have paid upfront, but it is customary to offer a tip.”

Albert in a daze stumbled to his feet, staggered to a drawer and withdrew a wallet. He looked inside chose a couple of banknotes and handed them over, croaking, “Thank you.”

The boy’s smile was genuine. “Thanks Mr Cartwright, I hope we meet again.” Without further ado he let himself out.

Albert was regaining his strength. He went to the kitchen, switched on the kettle and sat at the table. While he waited for it to boil he pondered silently, “Who the hell are Mr Cartwright and Mr Hennessey?”

Murph was bent over the desk, awaiting his fate. He had been told to grip the far edge of the desk, so he was stretched across it. His school blazer, shirt and white vest had ridden up his back. His grey school trousers and white Y-fronts were down at his ankles.

Getting into position meant bending over and presenting his bared backside for a caning even though he was a grown-up young man of eighteen.

In front of him, Dr Henderson-Smith, the headmaster, was rummaging through his punishment cabinet intent on finding just the right stick to take the bully’s arse off.

Eventually he took cold of the Malacca, a fearsome specimen. It was no longer or thicker than the rattans among his vast collection; but it was denser. And every three or four inches along its length were notches which, the headmaster knew from the rod’s satisfactory use in the past would raise serious wounds on a boy’s buttocks. A deep red welt would raise immediately the Malacca connected with flesh, then within minutes deep purple bruises would cover the entire area of the globes. The marks would stay for days, more than a week sometimes and the boy on the receiving end of such a thrashing would find it painful to sit for many hours. Some areas of the buttocks would remain tender to the touch for days.

Yes, Dr Henderson-Smith was convinced this was the cane to deal with young Murphy.

Mick Murphy, naturally known across the school as ‘Murph’, was from the town’s growing Irish stock. He was typical of the breed; his head was oblong shaped and his face looked like a potato. His body was built like a navvy’s and covered in hair. The good doctor had never before seen such hairy buttocks on a teenager.

Murph shuddered in anticipation of the ordeal to come as the headmaster moved into position behind him, and swished the cane menacingly through the air, adding considerably to the young man’s trepidation.

Dr Henderson-Smith had no sympathy with the boy now prone across his leather-topped desk. He was a bully and an extortionist. For many months the lout had been terrorising junior boys and taking their lunch money. Murphy’s was a simple plan. At St Francis Independent Grammar School the prefects were not allowed to punish the younger boys outright; instead they distributed punishment slips for breaches of good behaviour. If a boy collected three such slips it meant an automatic caning from his housemaster.

Murphy dished out the slips as if they were confetti; but he would ‘let a boy off’ if he coughed up his lunch money; which they always would do. The cash kept Murphy in smokes and paid for the ‘girlie’ magazines that were easily available from certain newsagents in town.

It went on for months: perhaps, the only question to ask is why he did not get caught sooner. It was only by chance that Mr Tooke, a junior master, looking through the chemistry lab window saw the brute attack the tiny eleven-year-old boy. Albright rolled in a ball on the ground to protect himself from the flailing legs of his attacker.

That was how Murphy found himself knocking on the sturdy oak door of the headmaster’s study.

‘Enter!’

Murph gulped and entered the study closing the door behind him, the desk in front of him was clear. The headmaster was a bit of a drama queen. Calmly, he told Murph that his behaviour was unacceptable.

“You’re going to be sound-er-ly th-rashed, my boy, and that means a prop-er can-ing,” he rolled every syllable around his tongue, fondly believing this would drive terror into any misbehaving teenager’s heart.

“Move over to my desk, drop your trousers and underpants and spread yourself across it, gripping the sides. This will hurt and is intended to.”

Murph had expected this. Although he had never been sent to the headmaster’s study before, he had heard tales from other boys who had. His friend Mitchell had been caned last week; he said it hurt something awful. Felt like a red hot poker against his skin.

In a trance, Murph unbuckled his belt, unfastened his trousers, pulled the zip and let them slide off his hips and down his thighs. As he did as he was told he dreaded what was to come next.

“Underpants too, boy!” It was a sharp command. The headmaster was not about to have his time wasted by this sixth-former.

Still Murph hesitated; he really did not want to expose his bare flesh to the headmaster.

“Please don’t make me come over there and take them down for you!” Dr Henderson-Smith would have too. He found that many of his pupils were far from stoical when the time came for a caning. In generations past it was a matter of honour for a schoolboy to present himself gallantly for a beating, but many modern boys lacked the courage to do this.

With shaking hands and scarlet face, Murph stuck his thumbs under the waistband of his underpants and dragged them to his knees, displaying his genitals. Quickly, he cupped them in his hands to hide them from the headmaster’s view.

“Stupid boy! I am not the least bit interested in your private parts,” the headmaster thought, but did not say aloud. It was the another part of the boy’s anatomy that interested the good doctor.

He tapped the wooden desk with his finger. “Bend over.”

Murph bent right over it, clutching the far edge and offering his bottom most submissively for what was to be a thrashing of a lifetime.

There was no ceremony with the headmaster. He had a job to do, no a duty, to perform and he got on with it.

The boy felt the cane rest on his backside and then it was gone. The next thing he felt was the cane land on his bare backside and an intense line of fire erupted across his buttocks, This was Murph’s first bare-bottomed caning and the eighteen-year-old screamed. He had never felt anything quite like it. He was hot all over, but his bottom was definitely hotter still and rapidly overheating.

It might have been fairer not to give such a vicious first stroke, but the headmaster was in no mood to show any leniency, and had delivered it with every ounce of effort at his disposal

After a slight pause, a second stroke landed a little below where the first had marked him. Murph was astonished by the severity and intensity of the stripe. He felt flushed and humiliated to be fully dressed on his top half, but naked from the waist down. Cold perspiration ran down his back.

“Please Sir!” Murph wailed. “Please Sir, I’m sorry!”

“Silence boy!” thundered the headmaster and cracked the cane down again. Strokes three onwards landed on the bare flesh, hurting, if possible, even more than the first one. By the fourth stroke, snot and tears were cascading down his huge face. The headmaster did not decrease his punishment one bit and was well satisfied with the boy sobbing on the desk in front of him.

The sixth stroke slashing across the base of Murph’s bottom, where it joins the thighs, was the final straw, causing him to yell out and sob loudly. His legs danced and thrashed about. He had never been in such pain, nor imagined that such pain was possible to survive.

With Murph still across the desk, the headmaster gave him a final warning about his behaviour before giving him permission to get dressed. As the teenager was dressing Dr Henderson-Smith replaced the cane in the cabinet and sat down before opening the punishment book. He wrote Murph’s name, the nature of the offence and details of the punishment inflicted. He noted with some satisfaction that this was the fifteenth entry in the book that month and it was still only the second week.

When instructed by the headmaster, Murph slowly pushed himself back on his elbows as he got unsteadily up. His legs felt weak and he had to lean on the desk for a couple of moments before he got his balance.

Murph slowly pulled his underwear back up over his buttocks, unable to resist gently probing the damage with his fingers as he did so. He could feel the painful ridges that would be visible for quite some time to come. Finally he got his school trousers up and fastened, then stood, hands clenched at his side, in front of the headmaster, his hands gently massaging his throbbing backside and his eyes wet with tears. He signed his name in the punishment book with the lecture from the headmaster on his future behaviour and a warning that it would be worse if he ever came before him again on a similar offence, ringing in his ears.

Murph was dismissed and slowly he limped from the study his hands rubbing his buttocks and his eyes still moist with tears.

Like this:

“One hundred dollar fine; two hundred and fifty dollars to be paid in damages and four lashes of the cane on the bare buttocks. Take him away. Next case.”

The twenty-eight-year-old footballer bitterly resented being in this God-forsaken African country. Tony Jeffries was an important name in European soccer and starred in a top club, but he was still forced to tour the world to these backwaters, just because the club wanted to extend its brand across the globe.

Now, he was to get a different kind of brand across his own globes.

It had all happened so quickly. Last night he and some of the backroom boys at the club escaped their hotel to see a bit of night life. That was a big mistake, the town was a dump and there was nothing to do. They did find a rundown bar and had a few drinks, but nothing too much. Then some locals recognised who he was and muscled in. They would not leave him alone, words were exchanged, punches flew, tables got overturned, glasses were smashed, the police were called, and he ended up in the magistrates’ court.

The charges were violent conduct, criminal damage and causing a disturbance. And, for that, in this country you got your arse caned. Judicial corporal punishment was normal here, the law said men up to the age of forty could be lashed and courts routinely sentenced criminals to the cane.

Jeffries had to sit through two others cases before his own was heard. In the first a twenty-eight-year-old man got a fine and three lashes on the bare buttocks for stealing peanuts from a store. In the second, a man got five cuts for trying to snog a woman who did not welcome his advances.

Corporal punishment was a relic from colonial days when the ruling power used the cane liberally against the natives. They treated the locals as if they were children, no matter how old they really were, and believed that administering ‘spankings’ was the way to get them to do as they were told.

Today, people believed corporal punishment was a good method of controlling the population and a sentence of lashing was cheaper than sending people to prison.

So, that’s how Jeffries came to be waiting his turn for a visit to the flogging room at the court. He had spent the night in a police cell, but he couldn’t complain. He was given a chance to call his club who contacted a lawyer and his country’s embassy and got the same response: Jeffries was guilty (he admitted that) and he had to take a whipping. It was the law and that was all that could be said about it.

A doctor had examined Jeffries to ensure he was fit to be whipped. All he did was to put a stethoscope to his chest to test his heart and, of course, Jeffries was fit; he was a world-class athlete, after all.

At one time the beatings were held in the police station’s examination room, but they were later transferred to the present room when it was found that the police station ceiling was too low to permit a full swing of the cane.

In the flogging room there were five adults. Two policemen held Jeffries bent over a table, and his trousers were pulled down.

A third policeman flogged him on his naked buttocks.

So great was the pain caused by the chastisement that a handkerchief was stuffed into his mouth to prevent those present hearing his piteous cries. It might also stop him biting off his tongue.

The policeman threw himself into a striking attitude. This was to be no child’s play.

The chief officer called “One!” His colleague raised the cane and smashed it down on the bare buttocks of the prisoner.

The first stroke had been a sort of overhead and downward cut.

The policeman was in no hurry. The second hand of the chief officer’s watch crawled. The punishment must not be hurried. After five seconds that seem like an age, he called, “Two!”

This second one – whew! – swish! It came underhand and upwards, shattering the bruised flesh.

The doctor took note of Jeffries’s face. It was grey. But the doctor was not concerned. His function was not to stop the infliction of pain but to save the authorities the embarrassment of a man dying under punishment.

Jeffries’s entire consciousness was dominated by the thought of the next stroke – until his torture came to an end or the doctor called a halt.

“Three!” As the third stroke swished home, the footballer lost all sense of his surroundings. A symphony of pain engulfed his whole being. By now, he could no longer keep track of time.

“Four!” Whizz! — slosh! A straight forearm cut fair across the other three lines.

The men let his hands and feet go, he sprang erect with flushed face and suspiciously brilliant eyes. His arse burned as though he’d sat his bare bottom on a hot griddle.

A policeman ushered Jeffries from the room, to ready it for the next customer.

Jeffries could not sit down and was forced to lie on his stomach in the back of a people carrier for the journey back to his hotel. In the privacy of his room he gently eased down his trousers and underpants and examined the four distinct burning lines of pain that adorned his buttocks, it would be a full day before his backside became less painful to touch.

The following day he had to work hard not to fidget sitting in the plane as the team flew home and it took another two days before he could sit without being reminded of that God-forsaken country.

In February 2006 Mr R. A. F. Brightlington-Pugh, a former housemaster at the Ridgeway private boarding school in the west of England, passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of ninety-seven. Some years later, his great-great-great-great nephew found a leather-bound travelling chest containing diaries he had written during the 1930s and 1940s. This present story The Poker Game was inspired by the diary entry for 3rd February 1938.

All schoolboys like to think that they are adults and should be treated accordingly. It is the schoolmaster’s duty to disabuse them of this notion and be a constant reminder that they are indeed children who must subordinate themselves to the will of their elders.

It was for this reason that Ridgeway insisted that all its pupils wore smart short trousers as part of their school uniform until they attained the age of sixteen and entered the sixth-form. Personally, I should be very content if they continued to wear short trousers until the day they left school in their nineteenth year.

A Ridgeway boy is instantly recognisable in the locale. In additional to the dark-grey short trousers that reach to an inch above the knee, he wears a bright red woollen blazer with white edging; a red-and-white-hooped cap and grey knee socks with red tops.

Despite, all our attempts to remind the boys they are but children some continue to defy us. Thus it was that this evening I chanced upon the sixth-form poker game.

I am not in the habit of patrolling the house after lights out. There is a prefect body whose duty is to keep good order in the house. To that end they are expected to account that each boy is safely tucked up in his bed before they too retire for the night.

This evening I was feeling particularly irritable. There was nothing to listen to on the wireless save for Bandwagon, a humorous programme (or so says my copy of the Radio Times). I could bear Arthur Askey and Stinker Murdoch no longer, so decided on a tour of the house.

All was quiet, as indeed it should be at this hour. I did not venture inside the dormitories; I trust my prefects to do their jobs properly. I was certain all would be well. For no particular reason that I can recall, I ventured down the passageway that led to the senior studies. I could tell at once something was amiss. A shaft of light gleamed beneath the door of number five. As I approached my nostrils were assailed by a familiar scent. An aroma that was unwelcome in the boys’ studies. It was the smell of cigarette smoke.

I gripped the handle and twisted it. The door would not budge. It was locked. There was some illegal activity afoot. I hammered the palm of my hand against the heavy wooden panel.

Inside the study a little poker party was suddenly startled. Tracey jumped up, his hand of cards slipping from his fingers. “What the …” he exclaimed.

Wright, Amber and Prior were all on their feet. That sound could mean only one thing: a master had discovered their game.

“What dashed bad luck,” breathed Wright. “Quick get the cards out of sight.”

I banged again, somewhat louder this time. “Open up in there! Open up I say!”

“The smoke; we can’t clear the smoke,” hissed Amber, waving his arms around like a demon.

“Keep the door locked Wright,” whispered Prior. “Tell him you’ve dropped the key to make us some time.”

I continued banging.

“All right Sir,” called out Wright in a shaky voice while his chums frantically hurried cards and cigarettes out of sight. “I … I’ve dropped the key.”

I called out, “You will open this door immediately Wright. At once, or the consequences for you all will be very grave indeed.”

I heard the scraping of the key in the lock and slowly the door eased ajar; but only by an inch. I pushed it open and strode into the study.

Four ashen-faced eighteen-year-old boys stood before me. They were dressed in their regulation grey-and-white-striped pyjamas. The evidence of their crimes lay all around them. A deck of playing cards and hastily extinguished cigarettes.

There was very little to say. They had been caught in the act.

“Attend my study immediately. Wait outside for my arrival.”

Such a command could mean only one thing: a beating was imminent.

I watched four sorrowful schoolboys as they trudged down the passageway. I put the cigarettes in my pocket; I would smoke them myself later. I searched the room half-expecting to find a whisky bottle secreted somewhere, but there was none.

Minutes later I joined the four miscreants at my study. They stood in the passageway facing the wall with their hands on their heads. I had not instructed this, but it was a standard requirement of any boy sent to attend a housemaster’s study. These four knew the drill. There was not a bottom before me that I had not thrashed before.

I called the four into my study and they stood in front of my leather-topped desk. Like so many schoolboys in their situation they took an intense interest in the rug beneath their feet. I instructed them to look at me and I jawed them. I did not take too long; we all knew why we were there.

As any schoolmaster should attest, the cane is a highly efficient tool of punishment. No caned boy can be in any doubt of his schoolmaster’s disapproval. His buttocks will glow and so they should. The punishment is delivered and is then over within minutes; then we all move on with our lives.

I knew each of the four boys before me intimately. They were all similarly culpable in this evening’s crime. None of them was a leader and none the led. I could treat them all equally – and that was precisely what I did.

Hardly a day goes by without my caning a boy. My preferred method is to make him lay face down across the back of my worn armchair; his arms stretched ahead of him; his feet firmly planted eighteen inches apart on the ground and his bottom raised. The buttocks are presented at the perfect angle to receive swipes from my cane across the fleshiest part of the posterior.

I reached across to the hat stand that stood in the corner of the study. I always have at least two canes – one thick and one thin – dangling ready for action.

“Wright,” I called, “Bend over the chair.”

Wright would not catch my eye, even though this was hardly a new experience for the eighteen-year-old. He stepped forward and rather like a diver going into an icy pond he flopped forward and held on to the arms of the chair.

“Come now Wright,” I sighed, “You have been here often enough. You know the form: head low, bottom high, feet apart.” He wriggled about a bit until he was presented to my satisfaction.

I choose the thicker of the two canes, flexed it between my hands, and tapped Wright gently across the very centre of his bottom. Six strokes of the cane fell, hard, one after another. Every one was a hefty lash; but no sound came from Wright. When I gave permission, he rose from the desk, his face pale, and his eyes glinting. He resumed his position alongside his fellow poker players.

“Amber, step forward.”

The boys were stoical, but Amber, who it must be reported had a very meaty backside, wriggled a little as each stroke fell. I do not play games when I cane a boy. Each swipe fell with great force. It was as if I were beating a carpet.

Tears were forming behind Amber’s eyes when he rose from the desk. I could see he desperately wished to rub at his fleshy behind, but such a thing is not permitted. There is some unwritten code: no rubbing until you are out of the eyesight of the schoolmaster.

Prior was next. I had last thrashed the boy only the previous week. That had been for breaking bounds. I had laid it on him with terrific force; he was a recidivist and often skipped out of school. He must have a high tolerance for pain; it was as if he had hardly felt a thing. I had considered later that perhaps he had smuggled some padding beneath his trousers. This time with only his pyjama bottoms for protection there would be no doubt.

As had his fellows, Prior positioned himself without fuss. I saw him close his eyes and shut his teeth in anticipation of the searing pain he was about to endure.

A caning is really a competition of sorts between the master giving correction and the boy accepting it. One has to inflict; one has to endure. I must lay these strokes on the boys’ bottoms with all the skill I can muster. I must be firm; I must be precise. My job is to be the agent of authority. The boy’s job is to hold fast, without crying or begging to be let off. In short, to accept the discipline.

Prior behaved admirably. I could see welts forming under the thin cotton pyjamas. The thrashing must have hurt him terribly, but he showed little outward sign. When commanded, he rose and took his position alongside the others.

Tracey was last to go. He had witnessed the stoicism of his fellows. I do not know if this adds to the intensity of the occasion. Did knowing that the others had taken their beating well put additional pressure on a boy not to let himself down?

Tracey was over the chair in a trice. It was as if he were saying, “Go ahead, do your worst. I can take it.”

I did indeed do my worst; or do I mean my best? I delivered six of my very best across the most tender part of the boy’s bottom at the point where the under-curve of the cheeks met the thigh. Tracey’s body wriggled and writhed; his hips swayed and his feet marched up and down on the carpet. I heard him cough and splutter as he successfully stifled the yells he most certainly wanted to make.

It was over. I estimate it had taken no more than three minutes to put the boys through their paces. They stood before me with four pairs of blazing buttocks. I am not a cruel man, I knew they very much wanted to be on their way down to the lavatories where they would inspect the damage, admire my handiwork, and congratulate one another on their fortitude.

I sent them on their way. Later, I lit one of the confiscated cigarettes and returned to the wireless. A musical interlude was being broadcast. I leaned back in my armchair and blew smoke rings at the ceiling and reflected on my efforts – a very contented man indeed.

Adrian chewed on his bottom lip and kept his eyes downcast on the carpet. He was not quite sure where to put his hands, so he let them hang loosely at his sides, then he clasped them behind his back the way a member of the royal family does. Lastly, he held his hands in front of his cock like a footballer defending a free kick. Then he started the routine all over again.

He could not get his eyelids to stop flickering; he was wracked with anxiety.

“You know why you are here young man.”

Adrian was not sure: was this a question, or a statement of fact? He decided a non-committal grunt would be enough of a response.

“Your work is sloppy. You make countless mistakes; you do not pay attention when you are working.”

It was quite a litany of complaints.

And there was more. “You are often late into work and back from lunch. You are often away from your desk for no good reason.”

Adrian listened as best he could. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it would burst through his chest. His breathing was becoming shallower and those damn eyelids would not slow down.

“I warned you before about your conduct, young man.”

Yes, Adrian silently agreed. Mr Gregory had warned him. More than once actually. There was nothing Adrian could say in mitigation. Everything his boss said was true. He was probably the worst accounts clerk in history. He had no aptitude for the job; no head for figures. Hey, he could not even add up properly.

It was a wonder to him how he ever got this job in the first place, but really he had no choice but to stick at it. Jobs were hard to come by these days and you did not readily give one up.

Mr Gregory eyed the accounts clerk. The boy’s clear skin was flushed pink; with embarrassment and also anxiety. His sparkling grey eyes were a little moist and hidden by his long curled lashes that refused to keep still.

“What did I say would happen if your work did not improve?”

Adrian’s pinkish face turned pillar-box red. He could not catch his breath.

“T..t..t…” he tried to respond but no words would form. His mouth was now as dry as the Gobi Desert.

Mr Gregory enjoyed the boy’s discomfort and his grey deeply-lined face cracked into a broad grin as he leaned forward in his chair.

“I’m sure you haven’t forgotten,” he cackled, his beaklike nose gave him the appearance of an eagle about to sweep down on the poor boy.

Adrian’s breathing, once shallow, now almost stopped completely.

“Well then young man let’s get this over with shall we.” Mr Gregory hauled himself from his padded chair and took a few steps across the room.

Adrian eyes followed the middle-aged man and his eyelids still worked overtime.

Mr Gregory sighed audibly and stooped down to reach the bottom drawer in an old-fashioned wooden chest.

Adrian closed his eyes tight: knowing instinctively what his boss would withdraw from it.

“Here,” Mr Gregory straightened himself and turned towards Adrian. “I said if your work did not improve I would cane you.”

Adrian was transfixed. His cruel ugly boss held a long yellowish-brown stick between his hands.

Mr Gregory was very proud of his cane. He fondly imagined it was just like hundreds that were used every day by schoolmasters to whack the stretched backsides of naughty schoolboys.

He wobbled it in front of Adrian’s face, hoping to intimidate him. He succeeded.

The rod was a little over three feet in length, about the thickness of a pencil and with the traditional curved handle at one end.

This was not the first time Adrian had seen such a cane. He had been on the receiving end of one many times at school for general laziness and misbehaviour. Adrian had been raised to believe a thrashing with a cane was a just punishment for wrongdoing. He knew he had screwed up at work and he had been warned of the consequences if he did not improve. He really did not have anything to complain about, but it was a little strange to have to show his backside to his boss. Adrian had thought he had left all that behind at school.

Mr Gregory whipped the cane through the air one more time. Seemingly satisfied that he now had the measure of the rod, he pointed it at his desk.

“Take off your jacket and put in there,” he swished one more time for emphasis.

Mr Gregory watched intently as Adrian with fumbling fingers undid the button of the jacket of his dark grey suit and slid it over his shoulders, uncovering his gleaming white shirt. With his dark blue striped tie and dark grey trousers he could be mistaken for a senior pupil at any of the local schools.

Mr Gregory drank in the sight of Adrian’s muscular shoulders and slim flat stomach as the boy carefully folded the jacket and placed it on the desk. He was so unlike many of the other boys in the office, still in their teens but already running to fat with middle aged spreads around their waists.

Another swish of the cane told Adrian it was time to prepare himself.

“Take that chair and turn it round so that the back is facing you.”

Although Adrian was no virgin to the sting of the rattan cane, he still did not relish the ordeal he was about to face.

Sorrowfully, he gripped the large padded leather chair and in one movement swivelled it round into position.

Another swish of the cane, this time directed at a spot on the floor.

“Stand there young man.”

Adrian shuffled forward and stopped.

“Closer!” Mr Gregory was impatiently anxious to get started. Adrian, however, was quite keen for the action to be delayed.

“Bend over the chair!” It was a curt command devoid of emotion. Mr Gregory had to perform his duty.

Adrian hesitated, gripped by the absurdity of the situation. Here he was a nineteen-year-old man expected to bend over the back of an armchair to offer up his arse for his miserable boss to whack with his cane. But there was nothing he could do about it; Mr Gregory was in charge.

For the first time that afternoon Adrian caught Mr Gregory’s eye; was his boss just a little embarrassed too? He could not tell.

Swish! “I shan’t tell you again.”

Adrian hesitated no longer; if he wanted to keep this job he had no choice. He took a deep breath, rubbed his hands together, took a pace forward and swiftly fell face first over the back of the chair.

“Bottom higher, legs further apart.” They were unnecessary instructions for Adrian’s bottom was already perfectly positioned to receive punishment. And what a trim bottom it was, much admired by the girls in the company and, if only Mr Gregory knew, by a surprising number of men as well.

Mr Gregory took up position about three feet from Adrian’s left buttock, before carefully rubbing the springy cane across the very centre of the boy’s globes. Tap, tap, tap, it went. Mr Gregory heard Adrian hold his breath in anticipation of the first agonising cut that would soon slice into his bottom.

Slowly, Mr Gregory raised the cane about four or five feet above the boy’s taut bottom and then with an almighty swing he slashed it down across the very centre of the target area.

A gasp of air whistled through Adrian’s clenched teeth, as a burning stripe seared into his tight cheeks. Instinctively he gripped hold of the foam padded seat cushion and let the pain course from his rear end up and down his stretched legs.

“Owww!” he could not help himself. He had determined not to show Mr Gregory any emotion, but this first stroke was worse than anything he had ever been forced to endure at St Simeone’s School.

Mr Gregory admired his handiwork. Yes, he smirked to himself that one had really hit home.

He raised the cane once more and positioned it a half an inch below the first cut. Again he gave the swing all his strength. The cut hit Adrian’s pert buttocks at speed, sank a little into what flesh there was on the boy, and bounced back with vim.

Adrian screamed like a stuck pig. Still gripping the cushion his back arched and his feet stamped up and down. Never in his entire life had he felt such agony. To say it felt like a white hot poker had been pressed against his skin would be an understatement.

The boy’s face, usually so clear and a little pale, was now puce. His beautiful grey eyes were drowned in tears.

He wanted desperately to plead for mercy. He would do anything for Mr Gregory. Anything at all. He would concentrate on his work, go to night school to learn accounting; buy himself an adding machine. He would be the best-ever accounts clerk that ever lived, if only Mr Gregory would stop hurting him.

“Yowllll! Oh my God!” The third struck diagonally across the other two, setting both on fire again. The howl that surged from his throat was so deep; Adrian thought he would vomit at any moment.

Mr Gregory spluttered and coughed. His body convulsed one way and then another.

“Urgggh” he was woken by a cold damp patch across the front of his pyjamas.

Miserably, he wriggled the pyjama bottoms over his buttocks and down his legs, before throwing them from under the bedclothes onto the floor. Then he rolled across to the empty half of his bed and tried to resurrect Adrian and those trim buttocks that still had to endure three more strokes from Mr Gregory’s cane.

…

The next day was Saturday so there was no work. Mr Gregory got up at eight o’clock, bundled his soiled pyjamas together with the bedsheets and the rest of his laundry into the washing machine, picked up his keys and left the house.

He was a creature of habit and just like every day, he shuffled down the street to the newsagents. It was still early and the street of small semi-detached houses was almost deserted. Couples were still snuggled together in bed, enjoying what was euphemistically called a ‘lie-in.’

It was June and the day was already heating up. There had been a heatwave for days and the forecasters said there was much more to come. At the newsagent, as he did every morning, he nodded a cursory “good morning” to the silver-haired lady behind the counter. He had been to the shop every day for ten years and still did not know the lady’s name. Somehow she knew his. Almost.

“Good morning Mr Gregson,” she smiled the way that small shopkeepers, eager to ingratiate themselves with customers, always did. He handed over some coppers and took his copy of the Daily Express. On weekdays he would then proceed on the five minutes’ walk that took him to his office, but on Saturdays and Sundays, he went in the opposite direction and made his way to Joe’s Café.

Mr Gregory had lived in Tylesbury for more than twenty years. It was what was still called a ‘new town.’. It had been built in the 1950s to house people cleared from the slums of London. Tylesbury was full of bright little homes for people to live in and factories and offices for them to work at. It was a socialist vision for the future.

His was a mundane life. He was born in Bethnal Green, which despite its promising name was not a rural paradise. It was a poor area of London near the docks and heavily bombed by the German Luftwaffe. He left school aged fourteen and drifted aimlessly from job to job. Kids did in those days, there was plenty of work and nobody had much care for the future.

He did his National Service in the Royal Air Force. It was in the Pay Corps so there was not much glamour in that. For the first time in his life, Mr Gregory found he was good at something. Unlike the wretched Adrian of his fantasies, Mr Gregory was well-organised and meticulous. When he was demobbed he fetched up at Mega Fastenings on the Herbert Morrison Estate in Tylesbury and he had been there ever since; making his way from general clerk to the exalted rank of Administration Manager.

The café was not busy at this time of day. It did most of its trade during the week, servicing workshops and offices. Mr Gregory liked it that way. He sat at his usual table and ordered his usual meal (full English breakfast) and settled down with his paper.

Nobody took any notice of him and he took none of them. He scanned the paper with no real interest. It was the usual stuff; economic downturn, a murder in London’s gangland and politicians droning on about how bad members in opposition parties were. There was a General Election due and they could expect a lot more of that before polling day.

Then he turned a page and saw something that made his juices drool. He slammed shut the paper as the café owner came and set his meal down on the table. Mr Gregory hoped the man had not seen the story that had caught his eye. He would not want people to know he was interested in that sort of thing.

With the café owner safely back behind his counter, Mr Gregory surreptitiously opened the paper. He read the story through quickly, then took a mouthful of sausage from his plate and chewed contemplatively as he savoured every detail of the story once again.

There was a school in a town he had never heard of. A right posh school by the sound of it. What happened was that the boys had been complaining about the heatwave. They were sweltering in their traditional school uniform of woollen blazer and long trousers. The older boys, some were as old as eighteen, said they wanted to be allowed to wear short trousers. The younger boys were obliged by the school to wear shorts up to the age of fourteen whatever the weather.

When the older boys demanded the right to wear short trousers their headmaster told them flatly: No. But, they rebelled and a group of them turned up dressed in their smart grey flannel short trousers anyway.

The headmaster went ballistic. They had broken the rules and defied his authority. There was only one course of action. They were lined up outside the headmaster’s study and one by one they were ordered inside.

Mr Gregory read with mounting excitement, ‘One eighteen-year-old sixth-former, who did not want to give his name for fear of retribution, said: “When it was my turn to go in the headmaster instructed me to bend across his desk. He then administered six hard whacks with his cane to the seat of my trousers.

‘“It hurt like Henry.”’

‘Another boy said: “It’s not fair. We weren’t asking to wear beach shorts. We would be happy to wear the same type of grey flannel short trousers the younger boys wear all the time.”’

Oh, how Mr Gregory envied that headmaster. That was the job to have, he thought.

He gulped down more of his breakfast as he read more of the story. Later, the headmaster rounded up three of the ringleaders and he publicly thrashed them in front of the whole school, even though they had already been beaten in the privacy of his study. And, oh glory! He gave it to them on the bare buttocks.

Mr Gregory’s heart sped. He read the story for a third time and then sipped gently on his tea. Tylesbury had its own posh school, called unimaginatively Tylesbury School. It was an independent grammar school, a kind of private school. The pupils were made to attend lessons on Saturday mornings and he often saw the older boys looking delicious in their bright blue striped blazers and long light grey trousers hanging around the shops in the afternoon after classes had finished. Some of those boys looked very dapper and eminently spankable.

The dreams he had about them would be enhanced greatly, now that he could picture them in their tailored short trousers each in turn knocking on the heavy oak door of Mr Gregory’s study, waiting for the gruff “Come!” from within as their instruction to enter.

Mr Gregory would be waiting in his oak panel-lined study, dressed in his swishing academic gown, a mortar-board cap, the one with the tassel hanging down, planted firmly on his head. To the consternation of the boys, he would be flexing his whippy cane between his hands.

There would be a curt command, “Bend over, touch your toes.” Mr Gregory would roll the boy’s blazer up his back clear of the target area and then thrash six almighty swipes into the flannel-covered buttocks. It would not matter how much the boy yelped, he would get the full six.

Then, “Stand up. Send in the next boy.” And one boy would be replaced by another as headmaster Dr Gregory did his duty and ensured the next generation of gentlemen understood the virtue of obedience.

Carefully, Mr Gregory tore the page from the newspaper. It would join his growing collection. In his spare bedroom at home, he had a tin box that he always kept locked. Inside was a sheaf of cuttings from newspapers and magazines. The box was inside a suitcase (also locked) on top of his wardrobe.

This would become one of his favourites, for sure. Others that he liked to take out and read again and again were about an approved school for juvenile offenders that was closed down the previous year after a government inquiry. They said there was inappropriate use of the cane. Inappropriate? At least no boy there got it across the bared buttocks.

Another favourite concerned two eighteen-year-old sixth formers. There were some young rabbits that were caged up ready to be used by the pupils in science lessons. The boys took the rabbits down to an open field and set them free. That cost them three strokes on the backside.

Mr Gregory wondered why that was considered newsworthy by the Daily Express, but he was grateful nonetheless to add it to his collection.

Breakfast over, Mr Gregory set off on the next part of his Saturday routine. Shopping at the new large self-service supermarket had become a pleasure in recent weeks after he discovered a young assistant called Phillip.

He knew he was called Phillip because all the staff wore name tags. He supposed it was to make customers feel they were getting personal service, as they had done before the large stores drove most of the small shops out of business.

You would not give Philip a second glance if you saw him coming towards you in the street. He was smaller than average, with a pock-marked face, developing jowls and an overbite. But if you saw him walking away you would be captivated by his exquisite buttocks. They were like two pimples inside his loosely fitting black trousers, inviting close inspection from connoisseurs of the male form.

Mr Gregory first saw him in the dry goods section of the supermarket. The old man turned from one aisle into another and quite literally stopped in his tracks. There at the end of the aisle was Philip, his back to Mr Gregory and bending down to put packaged goods on to the bottom-most shelf.

Mr Gregory’s tongue might have hung out, or his face might have blushed scarlet with desire; either way he was immensely conscious of a woman standing close by looking at him in a strange manner. He turned on his heels. He must get away and he must do it quickly.

But the temptation was too much for him. Only a few seconds had passed before he retraced his steps and stood once again at the end of the aisle admiring the vision in the black trousers before him.

Slowly, pretending to have great interest in the cornflakes and other breakfast cereal on the shelves, he inched his way down the aisle, fearful that at any moment the boy would straighten up and go away to another task.

Mr Gregory reached Philip and stood by the boy’s side. Unconscious of the stir he was causing, Philip continued to rearrange the packets on the bottom shelf. The boy’s knees were straight and his body bent. Mr Gregory was so close he could touch him. He had never been so close to a bending boy. It was as if he were submissively presenting his bottom to Mr Gregory and saying, “I’m sorry Sir, I have been a naughty boy, please spank me.”

He was so close he could put his hand in the small of Philip’s back, hold him steady and smack his palm down into the boy’s tiny, but perfectly formed buttocks. His ungainly hand was the size of a shovel and could almost fit across both buttocks at once.

The old man first approached the boy from behind, then covertly moved to the side to take in the full view of one of Philip’s curved cheeks. Mr Gregory raised his hand ready to strike.

Quickly, catching himself before he disgraced himself, he turned away ashamed and almost bolted to the other side of the store. Safe among the dairy cold counter he paused to catch his wind. The sight of Philip’s backside, seemingly offered submissively for a spanking, had literally taken his breath away.

His attempt to continue with his shopping as usual was frustrating. Did he need sugar, how many eggs did he have a home? None of this mattered any more. All he wanted to do was to return to dry goods and stand once again by the boy in the black trousers.

Trying not to be obvious he meandered around the aisles, seemingly haphazardly, but, like a marine on manoeuvres he was headed for one destination only. At last he was in the adjoining aisle. He was wheezing. Why? There had been no physical exertion. It was a sedate journey from one end of the store to the other.

But he did know why but could not admit it, not even to himself. He wanted that boy. He wanted him bent over before him touching his toes, asking, no demanding, that Mr Gregory beat his buttocks black and blue.

Then, but only when Mr Gregory gave the order, Philip would rise and very slowly and deliberately peel down his trousers, before in one fine athletic movement, once again bending forward knees straight, fingertips on his toes, offer up his bum again, this time wrapped in the soft white cotton of his underpants.

There would follow a bottom scorching whacking. Mr Gregory thought one of his old worn bedroom slippers would do the job very well. Two, no three dozen, whacks across those tight cheeks would do it.

The boy would take it bravely. There would be no howling like a hyena. Instead the punishment completed the boy would gaze into Mr Gregory’s eyes lovingly. “Thank you, Sir,” he would say, “I thoroughly deserved that.”

“Yes you did,” Mr Gregory would reply, “and if I have to deal with you again, make no mistake you will get it with your trousers and your pants at your ankles.” And then for emphasis, he would add, “On your bare bottom.”

His mouth dry and his tongue almost hanging out, Mr Gregory turned into the aisle to drink in the sight of the wonderful boy who had become his imaginary spank slave.

But, he was not there. In his place were two middle-aged ladies discussing the merits of instant porridge.

Oh no! Where could he be? In distress Mr Gregory darted from aisle to aisle, bumping into housewives going about their lawful shopping.

“Hey! Where’s the fire!”

“Will you watch where you’re going!”

No, he would not watch where he was going. All he cared about was finding Philip. He must be in another aisle, filling shelves. Somewhere on this supermarket floor, he was bent over straight knees, straight back. Showing off his perfect, spankable bum.

He searched in vain and then calming a little he completed his shopping. He must stop making a fool of himself, he admonished himself. You deserve a damn good spanking yourself, what disgraceful behaviour, and in public too.

Waiting his turn at the check-out he once again saw Reginald. Reginald was some kind of store supervisor and wore the cheap mid-blue suits the company made them wear to prove it. He could not be much more than twenty-one, twenty-two maybe, Mr Gregory had supposed.

He was tall, fair and rather chubby. Mr Gregory fell in hate with the young man the first time he had seen him, two weeks previously. It had been a small matter. A loose cap on a sauce bottle. It had not been noticed until the customer was ready to pay. Reginald intervened. A shop assistant was called, an elderly man, and directed to go fetch a replacement. You would have thought the man, who was old enough to be Reginald’s grandfather, was his personal slave.

“And be quick about it!” he ordered as the old man scuttled off.

Reginald was far too young to be a boss. He had no idea how to treat people properly. The way he spoke to the shop assistant was disgraceful; he was far too haughty. For nine pence Mr Gregory would throw the wretch face down across one of the counters and thrash his fat arse to pieces with a cane.

Right in front of ‘his’ staff; that would bring him down a peg or two.

Mr Gregory had a fitful sleep that night. Philip, oh Philip! He dreamt of him so often, He was naked and bent submissively across his knee. With his left hand Mr Gregory ruffled his hair, to let him know he was loved. His fingertips caressed his back as he followed the spine from the boy’s neck to the hairless crack in his buttocks. Mr Gregory’s right palm hovered above each cheek, and then with a circling motion, massaged them gently.

The boy breathed easily; he was submissive and ready for what he was about to receive. Mr Gregory raised his right hand to shoulder height and brought it down with a hearty SMACK! into his right buttock. He felt it, it smarted, and his bottom started to glow. He smacked him twelve times, slowly, so that his creamy white bottom turned to bright, bright red.

Then there was the time Philip was in school uniform, bending over, touching toes, as Mr Gregory smacked a gym shoe into the seat of his stretched grey Terylene trousers. Philip was across his knee as a soccer player for a spanking on the shorts (in the days when they still were ‘shorts’). Then dressed only in swimming trunks (he had been in the sea beyond the ‘danger line’) he was whacked (for his own good, of course) on his soaking wet bare arse.

Mr Gregory’s favourite was the boy in those lovely trousers bent submissively across the check-out counter for him to be thrashed with a traditional whippy crook-handle rattan school cane.

…

There was a timid knock on the office door. Mr Gregory’s looked up from his paperwork, expecting the door to open and his unexpected visitor to enter. But, nothing happened. The old man returned to his list of figures; perhaps he had imagined it. He was finding it hard to concentrate. There was a lot of noise from traffic on the estate that morning. And, his temples were throbbing a little.

Tap, tap. No, it was definitely a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Mr Gregory was surprised how hoarse his voice sounded. It was Monday morning and he had rather overdone it the night before, demolishing one bottle of whisky and starting on a second.

The door edged open slowly and it seemed like an age later when a young head with shaggy light brown hair poked around. Beneath the shock of hair was a cherubic face. Mr Gregory took in the vision: hazel green eyes, tanned, almost glistening skin, a firm chin and the cutest button of a nose the old man had seen in many a long year.

He could see the young man blanch; his eyes darting down to the floor.

Someone had to break the silence. Mr Gregory assumed as he was the boss it had better be he.

“Can I help you?” Again the attempt at warmth failed dismally.

The boy startled. “I’m the new work experience boy,” he blurted in confusion and even with the deep sun tan Mr Gregory could tell the boy was blushing.

“Oh, yes of course.” Now, it was Mr Gregory’s turn to sound confused. He knew the boy was coming. Mega Fastenings took two business students each year from the polytechnics. They stayed for a year, a sandwich course they called it. He had a file on the boy somewhere; what had he done with it?

“Craig. Craig Weston” the boy’s nervous smile was really rather scrumptious, Mr Gregory thought as furtively he ran his eye over the boy. Oh, yes, he thought, a definite improvement on Ian, the intern who had just left the company to return to his college. You will do very well.

Mr Gregory was practising his small talk with the office staff. He had been on a course. Say nothing of any consequence, nod repeatedly and smile a lot: that was the gist of it.

There were two easy chairs in the office but the boy did not have the confidence to sit uninvited. Instead, he stood in front of Mr Gregory’s desk, his hands clasped awkwardly behind his back.

“So this is your first morning?” Mr Gregory started on the small talk.

“Yes, Sir,” Craig replied, still not quite able to look Mr Gregory in the eye.

Sir! Yes, Mr Gregory liked that. He also very much liked the way the teenager was standing, awkwardly in front of him. He felt a fantasy coming on. It was a sweltering hot day, but Craig had dressed formally for his first day. He had left his jacket behind, but wore dark grey trousers, a plain shirt and a striped tie.

He supposed it was the kind of thing office workers wore. It was, but in Mr Gregory’s imagination it was a school uniform and Craig was a very naughty boy, sent to the headmaster’s study to be dealt with.

He could not see Craig from behind, but if what was on show in the front was a guide, he would look fabulous draped over the back of a low easy chair; or maybe even better, stood in the centre of the office, feet apart by a yard or so, bent over, knees straight, fingers stretching into the toes of his shoes.

Mr Gregory asked more inane questions but did not listen to the answers until, “So I have nowhere to live at the moment.”

Mr Gregory came back to earth. “Oh, so where did you stay last night?”

Craig gave the name of a local ‘hotel.’ Mr Gregory was not sure if the called itself a hotel, but if it did the new Trade Description Act would soon put a stop to that. It was a place for down-and-out tramps. It was entirely unsuitable for such a good-looking boy.

“But, I am looking for something else,” Craig trailed off.

It was an hour or so later that a germ of an idea lodged in Mr Gregory’s mind. It might work, he thought. Why not? He should take more initiative.

He had a spare room at his house. Craig could stay there. Why not? There might be gossip; he did not want the neighbours to get the wrong idea. Maybe, just temporarily then, to get him out of the doss house; until he found somewhere more suitable.

The heat, his self-inflicted headache and this wonderful new idea he had, was too much. He needed fresh air.

He fleshed out the plan as he slowly walked the length and breadth of the industrial estate. There would have to be rules of course; a curfew, keep the house tidy; set times for watching TV and so on.

He could see it now. It is a sweltering hot afternoon: will this damn heatwave never end? Craig is sprawled on the sofa in the living room glistening, dressed only in skimpy satin running shorts and a singlet. Mr Gregory enters.

“What are my rules about smoking in the house?”

Craig is startled; he did not know Mr Gregory was at home.

“What are my rules?”

“Eh …” Craig knows the rules and that he has broken them, but he will not give in without a fight.

“But, it was only in my room,” he says a little too defiantly.

“What are my rules?”

Craig flushes. He is in big trouble and he knows it. Mournfully, he replies, “No smoking.”

“Yes, no smoking. I’ve spoken to you about this before.”

Sorrowfully, Craig nods assent. Yes, he has been told. There is no excuse.

Craig flinches, trying to sink further into the padded cushion of the settee.

“Come here,” Mr Gregory reaches forward and grabs the boy by the left arm. He gives little resistance; he is scared but instinctively he knows he cannot get out of this. Matters have to take their course.

Releasing his grip on Craig’s arm, Mr Gregory snatches a clump of his unruly hair and pushes him face down over the back of the armchair. The boy’s singlet rides up his back revealing an expanse of golden tanned flesh.

Mr Gregory grabs at the elastic waist of the provocative shorts and they are soon at the boy’s knees: followed by his underpants.

Craig seems resigned to his fate. He whimpers a little, his now bared bottom twitches as he hears Mr Gregory unbuckle his belt and remove it through the loops of his trousers. Then he doubles up the wide, thick, heavy leather belt and brings it crashing down across the centre of Craig’s bottom.

In a frenzy Mr Gregory puts six sunset stripes across the boy’s cheeks.

“Be quiet. You deserve this. You’ve had this coming for a very long time.” Sweat is pouring from Mr Gregory as he raises the belt again and again, swiping it down into the upturned buttocks.

“You miss curfew, your room is a disgrace, you smoke in my house.”

“Please! I’m sorry! Please,” the pleading continues, but so also does the bare-arsed leathering.

Maybe, Mr Gregory reflected that evening, as he poured himself more whisky, it was for the better that Craig had found a room with the Rev Crick at Aston Budleigh where Ian used to lodge.

…

Back at the office Mr Gregory was on tour. He did this every day; he had been taught to do it on a management course. Be seen by the staff, stop and chat for a minute, let them know you are there. Mr Gregory was not a natural ‘talker,’ but he practiced a lot.

He loved walking through the offices of Mega Fastenings; it gave him the excuse to ogle the boys’ backsides. The office was pretty typical of its type there were upwards of 250 employees; many women with families; one or two older men; but mostly younger boys and girls in their teens and twenties.

Most days Mr Gregory would find Adrian working busily at his desk. Adrian was not an accounts clerk in real life; he was a general administrator in the order office. Mr Gregory had no idea if Adrian was good or bad at his work. He rather suspected he was good, he always seemed to be hard at it when Mr Gregory passed by.

Once, Mr Gregory had tried to talk to Adrian; to chat, just as the management course had instructed. Which of them had been the most shy? Mr Gregory reflected sullenly that evening. The boy blushed scarlet as if he had been caught in some naughtiness when his boss stumbled over an inane question.

It was not a meeting of great minds, but that night as he lay in bed his head spinning, Mr Gregory as he always did, went through the activities of his day, trying to focus on a moment that he could turn into a fantasy. He tried to conjure up Adrian, but instead got Robert and Pat.

Pat was a forty-something mother with the figure of a woman who had delivered four children. Advertisers had started saying such people had the ‘fuller figure.’ Mr Gregory arrived at the section of the open-plan office given over to purchasing in time to catch the tail end of a conversation.

Pat was cheerfully berating Robert, a twenty-something clerk.

“I should take you cross my knee, but you’d probably enjoy it!”

“Ha!” Robert replied backing off and returning to his work station, “You should be so lucky.”

What did it mean? Mr Gregory flushed and walked on pretending not to have heard.

Would she spank Robert. Across her knee? He was a burly lad, a rugby player type. She would have her work cut out forcing him face down.

But, what if he submitted himself to her.

“I’m sorry Pat. You’re right. I do deserve a spanking.” And then he prostrates himself across her lap. His chubby bum in the air and his sweaty face staring down at the hard nylon floor covering.

What would she do? Would she smack the palm of her hand into his tight bulging trousers?

No, Mr Gregory supposed, she would have a hairbrush in her drawer, that would be a perfect weapon. She could whack that with great vigour into his fat arse. Even with his trousers and pants on he would feel it.

Why had she threatened to spank Robert? Back in his office, breathing heavily, Mr Gregory cannot get the image of Robert out of his mind. What had he done? He should be told, he is the boss. It is his job to enforce discipline, not Pat’s. He should call the boy into the office right now and deal with him.

Mr Gregory sat behind his desk and stared intently at the space between it and the door. Mr Gregory is sat on a wooden straight backed chair. Robert stands in front of him, crestfallen. The boy’s hands are trembling. He knows he has done wrong. His boss has found out and now he must face the inevitable discipline.

Mr Gregory grips a stout wooden ruler. It is only twelve inches long by an inch wide, but it is half and inch thick and made of solid wood. It packs one heck of a punch when lashed down with force across a boy’s bared bottom.

Mr Gregory’s instructions are calm. “Take off your jacket and place it on my desk. Then please lower your trousers and underpants.”

Robert hesitates, but not for long. There is nothing he can do. He has broken the rules and he must be punished.

Not daring to look at Mr Gregory, sitting, legs splayed, back straight, sweat patches forming under his armpits, Robert unbuckles his belt, pops the button on his trousers and unfastens the zip. The weight of the bunch of keys in his pocket makes them hurtle to his ankles. Then he puts his thumb in the waistband of his pants and with the merest flick of the wrists he sends them to his knees.

His shirt is long and covers most of his manhood and buttocks. Mr Gregory affects a lack of interest that he does not feel.

“Lift up your shirt and bend over my knee.”

This is the first time that Robert looks at his boss. Has he noticed before how old and ugly the man is? His skin is pale grey, even in the height of the heatwave, the deep lines cut across his face; the beak of his nose reminds Robert of a witch in a fairy tale.

With his shirt lifted and buttocks and genitals duly exposed, Robert flops forward, his considerable weight taking Mr Gregory by surprise. Robert is not as lithe as Adrian and his buttocks are huge and flabby.

Mr Gregory is fascinated at the way the narrow heavy ruler sinks deep into the fleshy globes, before emerging, leaving behind deep pink stripes against the whiteness of his flesh.

Mr Gregory works methodically; no inch of the vast buttocks is left unscathed. Robert remains impassive, enduring the increasing pain. His bottom starts to tingle and this turns to real pain. His bottom is getting hotter and hotter. Ouch! This is real, not like when Pat spanks him.

The phone rings. Robert dissolves.

…

Adrian lumbers up the stairs towards his bedroom, the scolding words of Uncle Gregory still ringing in his ears. Already tears are welling up in his sparkling grey eyes and uncle has not even started yet.

“Hurry up, be quick about it!” Uncle Gregory is standing outside the living room. Adrian quickens his pace. Inside the bedroom, sorrowfully, Adrian looks at himself in the mirror. “You’re for it now, me lad!”

His face is wringing with sweat: the damned heatwave mingled with the boy’s fear. His deeply tanned face anxiously stares back at him. “Oh well, I’d better get on with it.”

In one movement he pulls his loose fitting shirt over his head, revealing a nut-brown chest. Then down come his shorts.

His tight bright green micro briefs hug tightly, bulging at the front. Some hair is poking out over the top. Adrian is no longer a little boy.

Should he keep his pants on? Would Uncle Gregory notice?

“Who am I kidding?” Adrian talks to himself in his head. He knows what Uncle Gregory has in store for him; underpants will not be playing a part in the action. He whips them down, releasing his cock and balls.

His pyjamas are tucked neatly under his pillow. He loves these pyjamas; he hunted in shops all over town for them. He steps into the grey-and-white striped bottoms, and pulls the long white drawstring tight before tying a perfect bow. The pyjama jacket is just a little bit too big; the sleeves reaching halfway down the palms of his hand.

Dressed, he turns once again to the mirror and sees the image of a small boy reflecting back at him. Ready, he leaves the room and trudges down the stairs to face Uncle Gregory.

Uncle Gregory has prepared a dining room chair which now dominates the centre of the room.

Adrian shuffles in and stands facing his uncle. He knows the drill; he has been through this many nights before.

Uncle Gregory loosens and then removes his tie, before taking hold of the cuff of his right shirtsleeve and slowly rolls it up to his biceps, all the while rebuking Adrian.

“I told you if I got any more complaints from school I would give you a damn good spanking.”

It was true. Many times, his uncle had made the promise, and now he would deliver.

Adrian’s eyes flicker wildly as his gaze follows his uncle across the room. He stoops and retrieves a bedroom slipper from a shelf under the television set. Fully armed, he walks over to the chair and plonks himself down.

“Come here.” Uncle reaches forward and takes Adrian by the left arm and pulls him forward. He does not need much force, Adrian is not resisting. The boy has been raised well. He knows rules are rules and if he breaks them he gets punished. And, in Uncle Gregory’s house that means a spanking.

Adrian cannot stop his eyelids fluttering. His breathing becomes laboured and he can feel the blood rushing to his face as the moment draws nearer.

Uncle places the slipper on his lap and with two free hands he sets about untying the perfect bow. Once done, the pyjama trousers fall of their own accord down to the boy’s knees.

“Bend over.”

Adrian closes his eyes tight, takes a deep breath and gently eases himself into position, wriggling a little until he is comfortable. Both his palms rest flat in the deep pile carpet, his knees are straight and his toes hover an inch or so above the ground.

Silently, Uncle Gregory prepares the boy. Adrian feels him take hold of the tail of the over-large pyjama jacket and drag it half way up his back. Now, naked from the shoulders to his toes, Adrian feels a very slight breeze cooling his bare flesh.

He cannot help himself as he instinctively clenches his buttocks in protection against the expected onslaught.

“Relax boy, relax.”

Adrian tries, but fails to release the tightness in his cheeks. He tenses more when Uncle Gregory caresses his huge bony hand across the boy’s soft tender cheeks. His heartbeat races and for a moment Adrian is certain he will faint.

Adrian feels a movement in Uncle Gregory’s body as his right arm is raised and he prepares to bring the slipper crashing down into the pert naked buttocks offered up to him.

Adrian twists and turns as sweat pours from his body soaking the bedsheet beneath him, his raging hard-on ready to explode. Something is disturbing him.

Like this:

Shane waited outside his employer’s office, he knew that he was likely to be sacked and the police would be called: he would do anything to stop that happening.

He had stolen seven pounds from the petty-cash tin and been caught, it was as simple as that. There were no mitigating circumstances; he had wanted the money so he could go down the pub, it wasn’t as if he took it to feed his starving children or widowed mother.

Shane was eighteen years old and had worked at Ferguson’s since he left school two years previously. It’s true that he did have a widowed mother, but when his dad died a few years ago, he left behind a very good insurance policy and the family had lived very comfortably since.

No, Shane had stolen the money because he wanted it.

Mr Ferguson’s secretary opened the door, “He’ll see you now, Shane.” She flashed him a smile, she knew what was going on, but it was impossible not to like Shane, he was a charmer, many women, especially those old enough to be his mother, often thought.

Shane entered the office and stood in front of Mr Ferguson’s desk; he couldn’t help comparing it to his old headmaster’s study. He had visited that a few times, he recalled. But, this was not the headmaster, this was his boss: he wasn’t going to get the cane; he was getting the sack and a criminal record.

Mr Ferguson liked Shane too, but not in the way the women did. Even if he was only eighteen, Shane had the kind of ducking-and-diving spirit that was a good quality in a salesman. He had recently been promoted from general office assistant to a junior salesman; it might be the first rung on the ladder, but it was certainly on the ladder: Shane could climb very high with his talents.

But, now this had happened, Mr Ferguson thought: petty theft. He didn’t know it but Shane felt no remorse; sure he was sorry about being caught but not about the theft itself. He thought they were all hypocrites, the salesmen fiddled their expenses all the time and what was seven quid to a company like this?

Mr Ferguson wasn’t sure what to do. Shane was a thief, but let’s be honest, he thought, it wasn’t armed robbery and the boy’s not a thug. Actually, he’s just like a lot of kids his age, a bit selfish with no real scruples and he wanted everything on a plate, now. He just needs to learn to grow up; a short sharp lesson would be enough, he doesn’t need a criminal record.

When he first heard of Shane’s theft, Mr Ferguson thought how uncannily similar it was to his own experience thirty-odd years ago. He was eighteen years old when he and some pals stole a few bottles of beer from the local tennis club where his father worked as a steward. They took them into the fields and drank them. It was theft, of course, but also youthful high jinks. They got caught, but the police weren’t involved; he was thankful for that because a criminal record would have scuppered his successful career before it started.

Instead, his dad was informed and he dealt with it. And, how he dealt with it, Mr Ferguson could smile in retrospect, but at the time it was humiliating and painful. His dad marched him home and lectured him about how much he had embarrassed the family. And, here’s the rub, then he made him take down his trousers and underpants, bend over the arm of the settee, and he thrashed the living daylights out of him with his razor strop. He howled the house down with the agony and the indignity of it, but it taught him a lesson and he never stole again.

A bit of him wished that he could deal with Shane in the same way; a bloody good hiding would bring him to his senses and then we could all move on, but, he knew, if he told the boy’s mother he was a thief, she would die of shame and how would that help? Certainly, she wouldn’t be able to give him the punishment he so richly deserved.

Sometimes in the past, Mr Ferguson had hoped Shane might see him as a bit of a father figure, a role model if you like, but there was nothing to show he actually did. Perhaps, if Shane had done so, Mr Ferguson might be the one to give him a sound spanking now.

Shane expected the worse outcome from his meeting with Mr Ferguson; he had no excuses, he had stolen the money and he knew there had to be consequences for being found out.

If he realised what Mr Ferguson was thinking he would have jumped at the chance; he was no stranger to corporal punishment. He had been caned often at school for various misdemeanours such as smoking in the toilets and skiving off school at playtime: he was a naughty boy, but not a thug.

The idea that he might have to sack Shane and involve the police, upset Mr Ferguson and he really wished they could come to another arrangement. Then he had a brainwave; why not be honest with the boy, but he knew it would sound very odd if he just came out and said, “Let me spank you as a punishment.” How would that sound at an industrial tribunal?

Instead, he simply told Shane the story of the tennis club, the beer and the razor strop. When he finished there was an awkward silence between the two. Mr Ferguson could see Shane was debating with himself: should he or shouldn’t he? And, then he did.

“Could you spank me like your father did to you? he looked down at the carpet to hide his blushes.

“Well, I don’t know, Shane.” In fact, he did know, he knew very well that a leathering was the ideal solution.

“You must be quite sure Shane; it is a very unusual solution to the problem.”

“If it’s what you want?” As soon as he heard the words, Shane was convinced it was exactly what he wanted. It was the perfect answer, the schoolboy’s solution if you like. You commit the crime, you get found out, you are punished and then we move on.

Yes, Shane was certain: a spanking would be the ideal resolution.

Alright, Mr Ferguson thought, the boy had consented to his belt whipping, so we should get on with it.

“Shane, take off your jacket and leave it on my desk.” With no obvious embarrassment, the boy did as he was told. “Now, take down your trousers and pants and bend over that chair.”

In a swift movement the smart city-style trousers were down, quickly followed by his crisp new briefs. He knew matters had to take their course, so took a deep breath, rubbed his hands together and lent forward to offer his bare cheeks to Mr Ferguson’s belt.

His employer had no experience of spanking backsides, but instinctively knew the objective was to cause the punished boy considerable pain; otherwise what was the point? He doubled over the belt rested it across Shane’s buttocks to get his aim and lashed it down.

It had been two years since Shane was last caned, but he still had the schoolboy’s attitude that he should take it like a man. As the first six strokes landed across his bum he made no outward sign that he was in considerable pain. This was a tactical error, because, with his inexperience, Mr Ferguson assumed this meant his punishment was not working. So, he increased the tempo and brought the belt whacking into Shane’s bum harder and faster.

He covered both buttocks, from the top of the fleshy globes to the bottom. Shane’s resolve not to show pain did not last. His gasps turned to groans and then to whimpers. Despite himself he couldn’t stop shaking his legs as the pain built up in his bum to become agony.

Mr Ferguson remembered how his own father had thrashed him thirty years ago, it had been a rigorous beating, hard and fast, but it was not a flogging. His dad had wanted to get the point across, he had hurt his son badly, but not to the point that the boy resented his punishment or the man who punished him.

Mr Ferguson knew his father had spanked him out of love; he wanted his son to grow into a fine man (and he hoped he had fulfilled his father’s ambition). Likewise, Mr Ferguson loved Shane in a way and did not want to destroy any relationship they might have, but he did want him to learn and to mend his ways.

He whacked six more strokes across the centre of Shane’s bum and then told him to stand up.

Shane’s face was ashen and there were tears forming: how could such a thrashing not bring tears to the eyes? He rubbed gently at his bottom and then without waiting for his boss’s permission, he gingerly bent down to pull up his trousers and pants. His buttocks were tender and he felt the pain increase as his tight briefs hugged his burning bottom.

“Go home Shane: it’s over. If you mend your ways, we will not speak of this again.”

Shane picked up his jacket and limped from the office. He was relieved that Mr Ferguson’s secretary was nowhere to be seen and he left the building unobserved.

The pain turned to a glow quite quickly and it took a day or two for the bruising to go, but Shane did not feel he had been unjustly beaten. He had committed a small crime and had been properly punished for it and Mr Ferguson was right, there was no need to ever mention it again.